Society Game

We’re still deciding whether to give it a fully fledged page or not, but it sounds like a translation is incoming imminently, keep an eye on Bump’s Twitter.

What we have done is read a synopsis on Wikipedia and well… it reminds me of Pirate Master more than anything. 22 contestants live on set for two weeks battling it out for a $150k prize. The contestants are split into two “societies”, one democratic, one a dictatorship and they only come together for challenges. Each society has a leader who gets their own bedroom with special privileges. Winning a task wins money, $10k, which the leader can split as he sees fit. Losing means losing a member of the society, decided by the leader. The winning leader gets to put a loser on a blacklist, and if their name appears twice they’re eliminated The democratic society votes for a new leader on a daily basis, the dictators keep their leader until they get overthrown. The final three on each side will battle it out for the big money in the finals.

We really hope it works! If you haven’t been following this is a collaboration between CJ E&M, creators of amazing show The Genius and Endemol and sounds like stylistically it’s similar if not in actual content.

I quite enjoyed the idea of Pirate Master, but I thought the challenges were a bit silly. I liked the idea of sabotage points but in reality it just meant kicking people when they were already down so there’s no real chance of a close finish.

I did binge watch the entire thing a few years ago though and quite enjoyed it as a concept as I’m a sucker for this sort of thing, in the same way I quite enjoyed Treasure Island (the reality show) more because of the theming. I think it told quite an entertaining story.

I binge watched Pirate Master as well and liked it a lot with the same issues apparently. Funnily enough I have bingewatched the last Amazing Race series (the one with the social media stars) and liked it a lot apart from the tasks. I didn’t feel it was fair at some points and that’s very important to me.
For example I love Ruck Zuck and the new version is great, but the host sometimes tries to help the contestants in the finale and verschlimmbessert (makes it worse by trying his best) the words the team captain has to come up with. Although the host doesn’t know how the other team members will think, he proposes words and the captains are too shy to say something else. Thus some teams have not won as much money as they could have.
And I feel pretty similarly about the tasks on Amazing Race where they can choose one of two tasks, but they are limited to e.g. 3 teams per task, but the teams are not told about the number of teams currently at the task. So the 4th place might have to visit two totally different places without having done any mistakes. That made me really angry in that season.

1. It took them 50 minutes to get to the portion of where they pick the leader.

2. This is Survivor : Borneo.

3. As I am afraid of, this is going to be a majority game with no escape. Even in Survivor, they have hidden immunity idol to turn the table. I am afraid that this will lead to a boring game. “Meh. I know that those 3 will be the 3 finalists.”

4. Game quality is equal to Genius Game level, but I suspect this is due to editing instead of the game itself.

5. Strategy-wise, this is worse than Survivor. But social-manipulation wise, this is way better than Survivor. Propaganda at all time high.

6. I will be very happy if they have a jury of eliminated player like in Genius Game where they can give an advantage for the Grand Final. If not, this is going to be a long game of South Korea Next Three Musketeer disguised as a social game.

7. The Blacklist will only be played 12 times. They waste one. I am skeptical that it’s going to make a huge change.

My verdict:

The only game changer is The Blacklist for giving the potential to flip the table of Top 3 alliance of the other team. If in three episodes, there is no sign of intelligence of how to play it, I’m out.

I liked it. I think the set is great and I like the little air conditioning twist.
I don’t like the men/women ratio, although the women were way more present in this than in The Genius. Obviously a woman had to go immediately despite being the only one training the game beforehand. I’m really upset to see her leave.
I liked the match and hope the others will be just as genius-ish, although next week looks a bit boring.
The black list is gamewise the only interesting thing to me and I don’t understand why one would waste this opportunity. They say from the beginning that you have to get rid of your own team as quickly as possible, because then you will have a safe spot in the finale and I absolutely agree with this. And this twist is also a big risk: maybe good players play worse to get someone from their team eliminated if they are great with social skills. This good make great or very nasty television. But as of now it seemed like no one understood this chance.
I thought the leader who had to give up his position in the dictatorship would be punished or even eliminated, but nothing really happens. I think they shouldn’t be allowed to win money in that episode or something so it will hurt a bit and you think about the Keys of Rebellion a bit more. I think two keys are a bit much, if they don’t have any special powers when used together e.g. with both keys you only need 40% of the team to vote against the leader or something.
And it is much tougher for me to know who was who. Maybe it’s the editing maybe it’s me confusing the two teams. I feel like The Genius was easier to follow.
Oh and the information about the contestants in the beginning is so quickly removed from the screen that I had to pause the video to read all this, I wonder if Koreans really get all the info that quickly.
I will definitely look into it next week and I like it, but I’m not sure I will watch the entire season… (Though I will definitely watch the finale!)

So, it suffers the traditional Korean tradition of Being A Bit Long, but Society Game has lots of potential. Hour 1 was a bit so-so and plodding, but things got much more interesting in Hour 2.

I was expecting a Survivor like challenge to decide the winner, but having a more physical but still Genius-like game complexity was great, I really enjoyed it.

I disagree with “it’s just majority game”, because in most seasons of Survivor alliances shift thoughout the time. Time will tell, of course, but it could end up that way. I reckon leaders are going to become notorious, and that the game will be quite complex overall, there could be twists, we’ll see.

I like Survivor anyway, so this is my thing. I already feel like this is a series I’m going to enjoy and follow through to the end. Just wish it was a bit quicker in the pacing, but I wanted that about the Genius too. Do we know how many episodes it will be?

Additionally: GRATUITOUS ARMPITS. And someone recently got hold of a library of wildlife shots that they really want to use.

Not much to add other than that I really enjoyed it, and my roommate who’s not hugely into game shows enjoyed it. They’ve got a good cast, though it’s a shame the genders are still so imbalanced.

Does feel like there should maybe be three keys of rebellion instead of two, though. Barring any major twists, it doesn’t seem like there’s any real reason to rebel if you’ve got once since you’d probably just sail through to the final for staying quiet.